Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MSc)

Department

Psychology

Program Name/Specialization

Behavioural Neuroscience

Faculty/School

Faculty of Science

First Advisor

Nathan Insel

Advisor Role

Principal investigator

Abstract

In most species, social interaction depends on spatial proximity and the dynamics of approach can signal intention. While representations of others’ spatial locations have been found in areas like the hippocampus, we still have a limited understanding of how the brain uses these to guide social movement. The retrosplenial cortex (RSC) integrates spatial information from both hippocampus and posterior parietal cortex and may help link this information with motor control systems. We recorded neuron activity from the RSC of degus while they freely interacted with one or two peers. Similar to other species, we identified a robust population of head-direction (HD) “compass” neurons. We also found neurons that exhibited significant levels of peer direction (PD) information; however, tuning curves were more noisy, dependent on spatial context, and had lower firing rates relative to HD neurons. Similar properties were observed for “allocentric PD” (PDa)—i.e., neurons that fired if a peer was in a relative direction in the room, independent of the recorded animal’s heading. Using a Generalized Linear Model, we found that many neurons with apparent PDa selectivity could be accounted for by HD—though this was less true of neurons carrying PD information. These preliminary data suggest that within our testing environment, social direction information is present in the RSC but weaker, noisier, and more sensitive than HD information. While this could be linked to limited social-spatial cognitive demands in the study, the RSC may also be less involved in processing dynamic environmental cues compared with navigational landmarks.

Convocation Year

2027

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